It Is What It Is: Why we need to be our own best friend

Monday

Oct 30, 2017 at 2:11 PM

Lisa Sugarman More Content Now

I love people. I really, really do. (Most of them, anyway.) I love watching them and engaging with them and bonding with them, and most of all, learning from them. Because we’re all sharing this beautiful planet together, so we might as well make as many meaningful connections as we can while we’re all crammed in the same space.

Besides, other people fill us up emotionally, spiritually, intellectually and physically and add a dimension to our lives that we just wouldn’t have if we were alone.

But as much as I love being around other people — whether it’s friends or family — what I’ve realized, as I’m fast approaching my last handful of months in my 40s, is that I also love being alone. Like, I love it way more than I ever expected I would when I was younger.

Truth is, when I was a teenager, or even in my 20s or 30s, I couldn’t stand being by myself. I always craved that stimulation I got from being around other people. And the security of being with other warm bodies instead of being alone. (OK, that sounded a little slutty but that’s not what I meant.)

Whether it was hanging out with friends or spending time with my family, I always preferred being with someone. I just loved the camaraderie and the emotional fulfillment of being connected to other people. Yet, every day that goes by lately, I find myself more and more inclined to spend time alone. And enjoying it more and more. And I never saw it coming.

Maybe that’s because, when I’m by myself, I’m free to move at my own pace. I’m free to reflect on the world around me without any outside influences. Free to pay close attention to what’s going on in my own head — something I think a lot of us avoid instead of embrace.

The funny thing is, since I can remember, my mom has always said she’s her own best friend. (Still does.) And I never really thought much about it until now.

My mom was a wife and a mother and a super-social woman who loved spending time with people, yet she relished her alone time and said it was never an effort to fill any pockets of time she spent by herself. And now I totally get what she meant.

Being alone gave my mom time to recharge. And as a widow raising a daughter and taking care of her own mother, that ability to reboot was key to her survival. Being alone also gave her the chance to discover her own identity. It gave her the latitude to process and solve problems in her own. And it helped her become more productive in her professional and personal life because it gave her the time to focus on whatever she was doing without distractions.

And the older I get, the more I realize what a gift that kind of time really is in the great scheme of life.

Now don’t get me wrong, I adore my husband and my kids and my family and generally can’t get enough of them (unless they’re pissing me off, in which case I might need a minute). But I’ve grown to really appreciate having time to myself, where I get to dictate where I go or what I read or watch or do. In fact, I cherish every chance I get now to regulate my own time and focus my attention on the things that truly fill me up.

When we’re young, though, we’re always searching for where we fit in. So we’re exploring friendships and relationships and trying to pinpoint exactly where we belong. And as a way of figuring that out, we have to interact with the people and the world around us in order to gain that perspective.

We’re in school and sports and groups and clubs and constantly surrounded by people and eventually that FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) starts to take root in our psyche, and it compels us to keep interacting with the people around us. Even when we may not want to. Until we’re mature enough to realize that the only reason why we’re afraid of missing out is because we’re insecure. And that’s when we become less afraid of saying thanks but no thanks.

Then we pass through that stage of life and move into our careers and our free time becomes more of a commodity and we start to prioritize how we spend our time. We become more diligent about focusing our energy on the relationships and experiences that really matter to us. And we start to appreciate things like weekends and vacations and downtime a lot more. And that’s about the time when our FOMO level starts to plateau.

And then, in a blink, our circumstances change again when we start families of our own. That’s when we’re lucky if we have enough time to zip up our pants before we leave the house. But since life is always fluid, things change again before too long, like when our kids grow up and we circle back to having more time to ourselves again. That’s when the person we end up spending the majority of our time with is us. And at that point it becomes pretty imperative that we like ourselves. Otherwise we’re screwed.

I guess the reason why I’m talking about this at all is because I realized that I was actually a little afraid of how much I enjoyed spending time alone lately. Like I thought maybe I was becoming a recluse and that kind of freaked me out a little. But then, in an effort to understand why I was feeling that way, I started researching solitude and what that really means. And wouldn’t you know, according to Psychology Today, solitude is actually a state of being alone without being lonely that can lead to self-awareness.

In fact, according to Psychology Today, solitude is actually a lost art. Yep, it’s an actual art. But in modern Western society, solitude is often misconstrued as loneliness, which is why everyone tries so hard to be social. Cause nobody wants to be the pathetic slob sitting alone in the back of the room.

But once we crawl out from underneath the stupid stigma that being alone is a bad thing, we can recognize that it’s actually a very beautiful thing because being alone is actually rejuvenating and liberating and empowering. And super-crazy healthy.

So here’s the takeaway ... spending time by ourselves is important. Actually, it’s necessary. (Very necessary.) And we should all embrace it whenever we get the chance.

Being alone doesn’t mean we’re losers with no friends and should be pitied. Just the opposite. It means that we’re good being inside our own heads. And that’s critical to our survival.

Because being good with being alone means we respect ourselves enough to give our brains a chance to decompress. It means we’re giving ourselves time to do the things that make us happy and feel fulfilled. And it means we’re allowing ourselves to think deeply about who we really are and what really matters to us in our life.

All I’m saying is that getting to know who we really are and learning to rely on ourselves and be comfortable in our own company is a good thing. No, it’s a great thing. Because we can’t possibly learn to appreciate all the other people in our life if we don’t take the time to respect and appreciate our own self.

So, resist the urge to procrastinate and block off a little time just for you. Even tiny shards of time are out there for us to nab. We just have to be creative. And I promise it won’t be that scary once you’ve done it a few times. Who knows, you may even start to crave it like me. You might even find your new best friend.

— Lisa Sugarman lives just north of Boston, Massachusetts. Read and discuss all her columns at lisasugarman.com. Or, find them on LittleThings.com, Hot Moms Club, BeingAMom.life, GrownandFlown.com, More Content Now, and Care.com. She is also the author of LIFE: It Is What It Is and Untying Parent Anxiety: 18 Myths That Have You in Knots—And How to Get Free available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and at select bookstores.